VATICAN CITY (CNS)—Vatican technicians
entered the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in the dead of night,
drilled a small hole in the tomb under the main altar and extracted fragments
of what was inside.

The results were a closely held secret
for more than two years.

Pope Benedict XVI announced June 28 that
tests performed on bone fragments from the tomb demonstrate they could be the
remains of the Apostle Paul, because carbon-14 tests concluded the bones
belonged to a human being who lived between the first and second century.

Cardinal Andrea Cordero Lanza di
Montezemolo, who served as archpriest of the basilica, told a press conference
July 3 that the laboratory tests "evidently agree with the tradition that
the tomb is of St. Paul."

But Ulderico Santamaria, director of the
diagnostic laboratory for conservation and restoration at the Vatican Museums,
was a bit more cautious, saying the bones could be those of the saint
"because the analyses do not contradict it. Personally, I am in line with
the Holy Father, but as a person of science, I stop at the objective data,
which only give indications."

Santamaria showed reporters images of the
relics that had been enlarged with electronic microscopes and dated May 12,
2007, showing a time of 1:15 a.m., an hour when the basilica would have been
empty so that technicians could work freely and not be seen.

With a microsurgical probe introduced
through a tiny hole drilled into the top marble slab of the sarcophagus, Vatican technicians were able to take pictures and
collect material with little disturbance to the relics, Santamaria said.

They found microscopic fragments of human
bony material, he said, which were subjected to carbon-14 dating. Technicians
also found wool and linen fibers covered with gold or dyed in royal purple and
indigo, precious materials indicating the burial of an important person.

Grains of incense were also among the
materials grasped by the surgical-type tweezers, Santamaria said.

"None of the analyses so far carried
out, including the carbon test, are contrary to the likely idea that they could
be the remains of the apostle," he said.

The basilica has long been held to be the
burial site of St. Paul,
but because of the destruction and rebuilding of the basilica, the exact
location of the tomb was unknown for centuries. Vatican
officials announced in December 2006 that several feet below the basilica's
main altar and behind a smaller altar, they had found a roughly cut marble
sarcophagus beneath an inscription that reads: "Paul Apostle Martyr."

Because part of the sarcophagus is buried
beneath building material, Vatican officials
determined they could not dig it out to open and examine the contents.
Initially they tried to X-ray it to see what was inside, but the marble was too
thick.

Cardinal Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo
said introducing a probe into the sarcophagus was an idea approved by Pope
Benedict some four years ago.

The cardinal and Santamaria both
explained that the slab of marble covering the sarcophagus is marked with
circular carvings into which pilgrims once dipped pieces of cloth, which they
believed would touch the body of the saint, making them what the cardinal
described as "contact relics."

They both explained, however, that those
carvings had not penetrated the tomb and that the tiny perforation drilled by Vatican technicians was the only opening.

Cardinal Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo
said that the tomb had been "closed and sealed, and had never been
opened."

The cardinal said that a complete opening
of the tomb in the future had not been ruled out, although there was no
concrete plan at the moment to do so. Such a project would be a major operation
requiring the approval of the pope, he said. It would entail dismantling the
papal altar, extracting the very large sarcophagus and transporting it to a
laboratory to be opened and studied.

"One day perhaps it could be
studied; this idea has not been excluded," the cardinal said, adding that
further analyses could include DNA testing on the human material found.

Santamaria said that the testing had been
carried out by laboratories "within the network of the Vatican
Museums." Technicians did not know the origin of the material they were testing,
he said.

The bony fragments found were not
sufficiently large to permit DNA testing, Santamaria said. Likewise, the tiny
dimensions of the fiber optics used to illuminate the interior of the
sarcophagus and to take photographs did not permit a complete viewing of the
large tomb.

The press conference was conducted the
same day the Vatican
announced that Pope Benedict had accepted the resignation of Cardinal Cordero
Lanza di Montezemolo, who will celebrate his 84th birthday in August. The pope
chose as the new archpriest of the basilica Archbishop Francesco Monterisi, who
served as secretary of the Congregation for Bishops until July 3, his 75th
birthday.